The doors of D-level hissed open, revealing the blue-skinned Chiss Grand Admiral standing in a turbolift just beyond. This level was reserved for high-ranking Imperial officers awaiting punishment for high crimes against the Empire, and right now there was only one treasonous officer in his sights.

Without a word Thrawn stepped into the brightly-lit corridor, Rukh falling into step behind him as they walked down the central walkway. The footsteps were crisp and precise as stormtroopers snapped to attention with his passing. Cartos had been left to manage the Chimaera II in orbit above the planet, to leave Thrawn alone to his analysis of this man. Punishment would be swift, swifter than the Imperial courts in this instance: for the crime of working outside the Emperor’s mandate, Thrawn would personally witness the execution before this day was out.

Thrawn stopped before cell D-01-042, looking in at the former High Admiral. The man was sitting on the durasteel cot staring blankly at the floor, hands slack at his sides, jaw agape… almost as if he had died where he sat. The soft chirp of the life support monitors on the outside of the cell spoke to the negative, though: a special suicide watch, to ensure the man was alive to know he was being executed.

However… there was something not right with this situation. Piett had always been fastitidous about his appearance and his command, starting right from the moment he took Kendal Ozzel’s place as commander of Death Squadron over Hoth. This was uncharacteristic, and as Thrawn regarded the man’s unkempt hair and unshaven jaw his perceptions began to change. A subtle hand motion to Rukh stayed the jagged knife where it sat on his belt, and a nod to the cell technician to drop the forcefield.

Thrawn stepped into the cell to regard the man, Rukh slipping to the near corner. A moment passed, and then the Noghri assassin tapped his knife against the durasteel sink to get the man’s attention. Piett looked up, then back down at the floor… and a flash of surprise jolted the grand Admiral. In his dossier, Firmus was described as a man obsessed with protocol, responding to higher command without thinking… to see him deliberately turn away from the Grand Admiral sent more warning signals through the Chiss’ consciousness.

His voice was soft, the modulated tone reverberating comfortingly around the cell. “Firmus Piett, I am Thrawn. I am to be your inquisitor, rest assured my judgement will be final.” The phrasing was that of a Twi`lek interrogator, a being of unparalleled respect among the Twi and a feared member of society to any wrongdoer. The tone and phrasing of the voice was meant to evoke conflicting emotions of paranoia and security, to throw the man’s mind into chaos and to better facilitate true reactions from the former officer.

“You are here for disobeying Imperial mandate and destroying a civilian vessel over the planet Rinn. Do you remember the event?”

“You are here for disobeying Imperial mandate and destroying a civilian vessel over the planet Rinn. Do you remember the event?”

Piett managed to meet the Grand Admiral’s eyes with his own bloodshot one’s, “Of…of course I remember – the ship was…it…deserved it…it had.” He winced, as if trying to remember the event was a task that actually hurt to perform – the ragged imperial managed to recover quickly though, “Its these cells, I think they are…ahh…drugging me?” he almost seemed to question whether that was the correct word – the High Admiral’s state was leaving the blue brow of the Grand Admiral furrowed deeply.

Piett, however much of him was Piett and not the almost-crazed former officer sitting before Thrawn, immediately recognized this and averted his eyes scratching with nervous apprehension at the back of his head – his left hand rested on the table tapping out a drum-like beat with his thumb almost unconsciously. Piett’s wild eyes tracked back to the Grand Admiral “May I go now, I want to go now.”

The behavior of the High Admiral seemed somewhat indifferent to the idea that he had been detained in one of the Empires most infamous facilities – it seemed not dissimilar to the kind of behavior wild animals displayed when captured – and right now the High Admiral looked more creature than sentient. Thrawn shook his head carefully, “You may not leave but you may stand and move around the cell.”

Piett seemed to take this offer but his legs declined it – the left hands tapping became more frantic three quick strikes of the table, followed by three hesitant strikes, followed by three more quick strikes a pause of a few seconds and then a repeat – the sound was louder now – attracting the glowing red of Thrawn’s eyes and eventually Piett’s own – the right hand came slamming down on the left – silencing its drumming – the High Admiral attempted a grin “Nervous…uhh…twitch.”

A single blue-black eyebrow arched at the sound of Piett’s hand slapping the table. The burning red eyes of the Chiss had caught the soft tapping against the back of his palm, but the slapping that was repeated in the same manner was coincidentally an old distress call, gleaned back from the days before even vocal transmission in the ancient seagoing cultures. Coincidental that he would call it a nervous tick, or that he would be doing it in this situation…

Or, perhaps, not a coincidence. The man was too much of a commanding mind to let something like a nervous tick cause such a disruption with the interview. A slight glance to Rukh told the Noghri to leave the cell, before Thrawn’s eyes settled back on Piett. The snap and hum of the energy field being activated behind him did not draw his attention as he continued to watch the pacing of the former High Admiral. The behavior was most interesting, but it bore further scrutiny.

The bestial nature suggested a creature less evolved than sentience, a wariness and aggression that indicated a primal mindset. As if his cerebellum and brain stem were being allowed to take over his cerebral cortex, bringing him to a less controlled, more instinct-driven time. The ape-rooted line of human evolution was evident in the swinging gait of the arms and the rolling steps the former High Admiral took as he paced around his cell.

But this change of behavior was most interesting. The reports from the command officers aboard the Traumatize had stated that Piett was not himself when he ordered the fleet to move to Rinn, and had implied this was the way of acting they had observed. Curious, indeed. His modulated voice spoke again, lower in volume but sharper in pitch as he regarded Piett. “Firmus, I would like you to calm yourself and tell me exactly what you remember from the time General-Admiral Miranda Daala transmitted the information, until this moment.”

"Firmus, I would like you to calm yourself and tell me exactly what you remember from the time General-Admiral Miranda Daala transmitted the information, until this moment.”

Piett glanced at Thrawn with his bloodshot eyes as if he was having trouble working out if the Chiss was adressing him - he scratched at the back of his neck before hesitantly sitting down again. Thrawn patiently sat a few moments before he realised the High Admiral was not going to respond "High Admiral Piett, it would be very bad for your own sake if you didn't cooperate"

Piett sunk low in his chair, his whole body relaxing except for the left arm, the one arm that remained tense and continually tapping the side of his leg as it had when the officer was pacing. "I did what I was supposed to." the High Admiral finally muttered "I destroyed," the humans voice took on a stronger tone "The Enemy's of the Empire."

The dichotomy of Piett's actions was still intriguing the Grand Admiral. The total relaxation, except the tension in that one arm, was a contradiction that had Thrawn thinking, considering. After the briefest of moments the Chiss motioned for one of the Stormtrooper guards to bring him a satchel, containing various implements. The energy field clicked off, and back on after the white-armored guard resumed his post, leaving the black case on the table in front of him.

This was not something he would have done in any other situation, but the sudden shift in behavior left Thrawn needing to do what he did best: analysis of individuals and species through what they conveyed on parchment. Pulling a sheaf of flimsiplast and various charcoal pencils, he laid out the devices before Piett. The former High Admiral looked to them a moment, then back up to the burning crimson gaze of the Grand Admiral, flinching slightly as their gazes locked.

Thrawn himself leaned back in the uncomfortable durasteel chair, steepling his fingers as his eyes half-closed in thought. "Firmus, I'd like you to draw something for me, if you will. I would like to know what the explosion of the Nemodian looked like, and I have yet to view the footage from the Traumatize's sensor logs. I'd like to see your rendering of the event."

The sensor logs, and the destruction of the cruiser, had been sent to the Chimaera II immediately after the event. As the flagship of the Imperial Navy, his vessel was the first informed of any acts of aggression, or other aberrant behavior within the Fleet. He had seen the footage from every angle the ship had been able to provide, and knew exactly what the scene truly looked like... but the perception displayed by the piece Piett would sketch would give an indication to his true mental state. Though his eyes appeared mostly closed, Thrawn's focus was on that piece of flimsi, to watch as the lines and curves converged into a work of visual representation. The progression of the strokes, the final image, the cleanliness of the borders and the areas of focus would all give their clues that would assist the Grand Admiral in deducing the true nature of this event.

With slow, unsteady motions Piett's hand traced and tried to copy the image he had created with the guns of the Traumatize - his drawing was crude, at best, it showed little of any skill with art but instead displayed something similar to the drawings of pre-civilisation species. If anything it was a simple rendering of an explosion, overlaping jagged lines forming a large smudge-like shape on the flimsi.

Piett glanced up at the blue skinned creature and shoved the picture across the table to him, "There, now may I go...?" the voice was getting more and more strained, dropping into a feral hiss of anger as the body leaned closer over the table with a snarl, "I want to leave."_________________

"Rest assured, Firmus, when we have accurately assessed what has happened the appropriate measures will be taken."

Thrawn took the sketch made by the former High Admiral and turned it, momentarily taking his eyes off the man to drink in the details presented. There weren't many. The broad, slashing strokes indicated a passion that bordered in a primal need, and the focus spent on the explosion as opposed to the Traumatize's guns showed a fascination with the target, with the destruction and the annihilation of the foe.

The Firmus Piett that he understood, the one as described in his dossier especially from the Battle of Hoth on, was one that loved his ships as his own and held less interest in his foes than at the capabilities of his own craft. This in and of itself was a point of interest, but coupled with the jagged lines and the primitive styling indicated something that was entirely off the norm.

His crimson gaze turned up at Piett, who was still standing above him. The wrath, the aggression that the former High Admiral was displaying was not like him. This, coupled with the jerky distress call being hammered out by his right arm, told him very clearly. "Rukh, bring the medical teams. We'll need full diagnostic tools, and a complete sedative regimen." Thrawn stood and backed away slowly, his eyes locked on Piett as he kept the table between them.

"Whomever you are, you have been discovered. If you attempt to destroy the body you inhabit you can rest assured you will die. Do not make an aggressive move against any that come to you, else lethal force will be used. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Headless of warnings the infected Piett launched himself over the table with agility that certainly didn't fit his physical profile - snarling, and with its fingers curled into claws he swung its hand at the Grand Admiral only to find its arm sailing through thin air and its body moving quite rapidly backwards as Rukh threw Pietts form backwards into the electrified walls of the interogation cell.

As the electricity coursed into the High Admirals form, his mouth snaped open in an alien scream - the Grand Admiral was quick to order Rukh to release his hold on Pietts body, allowing it to drop away from the wall...the skin on the humans spine heaved and rolled as if something was writhing in pain BENEATH it...evidently the parasite did not react well to electricity.

Pietts head snapped up to glare at the observing Grand Admiral "REMOVE the damned thing allready - it took you long enough to formulate your conclusions...I do not have any wish to spend more time with it in me..." his face contorted in agony, "And be damned quick about it."_________________

Last edited by Firmus Piett on Mon, September 10th 2007 08:26pm; edited 1 time in total

The medical team charged in and took one look at the situation, then called for an emergency medical pod, as they struggled to restrain and sedate Piett. All of this, Thrawn took in with an impassive look, more of mild interest than fear. He paced slowly towards the former High Admiral, bootsteps thudding on the durasteel as his cool, modulated voice mingled with the sounds of struggle.

"One might not think it wise to antagonize the one that forced the parasite's hand, Firmus, though your aggression is forgiven. These men will have the situation resolved in little time - gentlemen, have him taken aboard my shuttle to EmPal SuRecon and see what you can do about the creature. I must do some research in the archives of the Coruscant Art Repository, there might be some link to what we face today."

He looked to Piett, then took a step forward as the two orderlies held his shoulders braced against the back wall, waiting for the sedatives to kick in. His voice was softer, almost friendly. "As for you, my unknown and parasitic friend, we'll have to see what makes you tick... hopefully without killing you."